Position of the East Angles in relation to other ethnic groups, c. 600
The Kingdom of the East Angles or Kingdom of East Anglia was one of the ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. The kingdom was named after the homeland of the Angles, Angeln in northern Germany, and initially consisted of Norfolk and Suffolk, names which possibly arose during or after the Danish settling ("North folk [people]" and "South folk [people]"). Upon the marriage of the East Anglian princess Etheldreda, the Isle of Ely also became part of the kingdom. The boundaries of the region, however, are vague. The modern region of East Anglia is named after it.
History
The Kingdom of the East Angles, formed about the year 520 by the merging of the North and the South Folk (Angles who had settled in the former lands of the Iceni during the previous century) was one of the seven Anglo-Saxon heptarchy kingdoms (as defined in the 12th century writings of Henry of Huntingdon). For a brief period following a victory over the rival kingdom of Northumbria around the year 616, East Anglia was the most powerful of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England, and its king Raedwald was Bretwalda (overlord of the Anglo-Saxons kingdoms). But this did not last: over the next forty years, East Anglia was defeated by the Mercians twice, and it continued to weaken relative to the other kingdoms until in 794, Offa of Mercia had its king Æthelberht killed and took control of the kingdom himself.
The independence of the East Anglians was restored by a successful rebellion against Mercia (825–827), in course of which two Mercian kings were killed attempting to crush it. On November 20, 870 the Danes killed King Edmund and took the kingdom, which they named East Anglia (see Ivar the Boneless). The Saxons retook the area in 920, only to lose it again in 1015–1017, when it was conquered by Canute the Great and given as a fiefdom to Thorkell the Tall, who was made Jarl of East Anglia in 1017.
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